


How to Make a World

by idigam



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Eldrazi, Jace mention, Kalissa is a little too curious for her own good, Kashar Eternity's Orphan, Kashar's world, Lavinia has a bad day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 01:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9359291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idigam/pseuds/idigam
Summary: In which Kalissa is good at fucking up everyone's day, and Kashar really just wants to learn about you, honest.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So while I'm hashing and rehashing my latest Wild Hunt chapter which is being stupidly uncooperative I have a few episodic pieces for varying fandoms. Here's the first, Kashar's origin story.

In a lab off the back roads of Simic territory where the dreary depths of the under city was a breath away; a creature grows. The sum of all the work of a single bio-mage, Kalissa traveled further than any of her guild. Past the curtain of mad nothingness that separated her world from all others. On these worlds she found unique variations of familiar creatures as well as new life-forms all together. None had awed her quite like the all consuming entities of a world whose mana was in constant flux. She drew inspiration from them; she drew biological samples and ethereal readings from them as well. It was slow going; the things did not conform to the rules of life and most of her attempts failed to take root. Those that did were inferior products around an existing biological template. True the shark-beasts, and lizard frogs benefited greatly, and her Rakdos test subjects are paragons of their ilk, but compared to the majesty of the titans they were nothing. Finally however a small mixture of the three samples, growing in an environment mimicking the madness beyond Ravnica’s vale and fed a constant supply of pure mana was growing…

***  
The entity knew first that it was not of the world to which it was attached. The chaos around it was too small, stifling, and stable. Next it found a small gap, it slipped through this gap and it learned its self; Kashar, it was called Kashar. Or at the very least the flesh-form being grown by the smaller flesh-forms was called thus. It knew that it was an orphan; it no longer had any of its own kind. The alpha flesh-form was strangely affected by this. Kashar watched the beings around the growing flesh of its body. It studied how the mana it grew off changed. Like light filtered through a crystal the pure form of mana separated when it hit this existence, radiant white, flowing blue, shadowy black, vibrant red, and wild green. The smallness of this existence as contained by a series of interlocking devices that wove blue and white through themselves to cut the lab off from the rest of reality. Perhaps beyond this wall of rigid magic was the chaotic nothingness that Kashar knew it belonged to. Kashar’s ethereal self twisted in a direction without a name and slipped past the enchantments.

What it found was more of this form bound existence. People, little radiances born of all five colors, make their way through some unfathomably small life towards even smaller goals with their heads down. Some of them were different, bickering scholars whose red and blue waves muted the other three colors. Rigid columns of marching white and red insects following a single blue and white form and trailed by black and white shapes choked a single street. Cold researchers like those around its still growing body, wrapped in blues and greens. Green and black shambling things that crawled in the dark below the lab in which it was growing, embodying a strange mixture animate flesh-forms and not. Green and red packs fighting with black and red packs over a tiny piece of land on a mote of dust in the Eternities; why did they do this? A small amalgam of colors was flickering out of existence while a primarily white and green mote poured mana into it in an attempt to save its dying flame. Curiosity sparked in the entity as it watched this, it moved forward and drew some blue to mingle with the white of the area, halting the mana hemorrhaging from the flickering form while the green and white form repaired what was lost. Then its attention was drawn elsewhere, another white and red shape that should have gone unnoticed had the veneer of white and red not fallen away like melting snow to reveal a dark water mix of blue and black. Scrutiny revealed many of these forms hidden behind shells of other mana colors.

Eventually after studying this realm it found the edge, and again twisted beyond the limits of space. Immersed in the chaos of the Eternities Kashar felt at peace; until it noticed countless spheres of existence, each sphere refracted the pristine mana into the five colors. Kashar moved closer to a sphere, it could feel the pulse of interconnected life like the one it came from. Curious it twisted again, this world was decorated with flowing rivers, vast plains, deep forests, sullen bogs, and high mountains. It was a far wilder realm than the rigid planned structure of the last existence. This one also had ten dual color entities, and another five for the main mana colors. These colossal embodiments of mana were part of and yet separate from the main plane. A small scar of the empty madness of Kashar’s home cut across the existence, and only the black and white power could traverse it. Collecting the beings there whose mana had taken a black shade and then returning to the far side of the shallow void.

***  
Kashar traveled, it found a world made of metal and flesh where the five colors all had an undercurrent of black, where white was dominating the world anyway. It found a world scarred by wars and apocalyptic environments, remnants of truly godlike beings, like and yet different from its self dotted the existence. A ruined world, damaged machines through all its spheres, some lost surviving scavengers but most was empty dust with the radiation of the white mana that destroyed it. There was an echo of another godlike being writ in the black mana but long dead. There was a world scarred by the void, where mana was chaotic and plentiful, but the cries of ethereal forms like its own, trapped within the existence, raging and in pain. Despite the plentiful food, Kashar fled, that world was a trap, one it was not strong enough to resist. World after world, universe after universe, reality, after reality, from a plane where time moved in odd ways recently upset, to an ancient world that had once been the center of everything; Kashar continued to travel onward. Kashar watched the flow of mana, and then began to experiment, bending and binding the lights. It returned to the existence where its form slept…

***  
Lavinia was not having a good day; a Boros patrol sent to break up a Rakdos party had gone south when members of the Boros and Rakdos decided to join up against the rest of their guild members. Selesnya healers were finding Azorious bindings on their patients, the bindings had kept many from dying true, but they recovered oddly. Stilted and rigid in personality even ones who had been free spirits before. Most seemed to recover after a few days but some may never. Just this morning a crazed mage had created an entity that was an amalgam of metal and flesh. There was a near war between the Simic and the Izzet over which guild the lunatic had belonged to, and therefore, which guild was stealing the others research. Lavinia was desperate enough to go to Isperia and attempt to seek the guildpact, the youth frustrated her greatly. However when she met the supreme judge she was extremely annoyed to find that not only was Jace nowhere Isperia could see on Ravnica, a habit she would train him out of if it meant pardoning and releasing Circu to lobotomize him. Worse the sphinx told her that what could be seen was a shift in the planes mana. A shift of white and black to alter the allegiance of two battleing guilds, a splash of red or green to drive a less stable researcher over the edge, or worse, Golgari (or maybe they were Dimir?) Using powers and strategies of the Dimir (or Golgari) to cause trouble nearly undetected. Lavinia was not having a good day at all and it looked like it would be getting much worse before it got better.

***  
Zil was content for a goblin, all she had to do was watch the test reactor for any changes and report it to the Izzet researcher she worked under. He hadn’t been around in a while but this was not unusual, he got distracted easily, in which case she’d write it down. It was getting near lunch when it happened, the Reactor flared with a brilliant prismatic light; green, red, black, blue, and white all surrounding the reactor until it was near blinding. Zil hoped this one didn’t explode and incinerate her like the last one had her predecessor. It didn’t though the light faded into a clear heat-haze of power before draining away leaving the reactor cold, dead, and covered in tiny pretty crystals. “Oh well,” Zil thought leaving a note for whoever came looking, “time for lunch.”

***  
The time was at hand Kashar felt its flesh form enter its final stages of completion. Soon its essence would be bound to it and the researchers would use their mana to try and command it. It acted fast it had become quite adept at moving and converting mana. It drained all nearby sources, and then it broke down the bindings on the incubation cell containing its body. Once this happened the containment field broke down. It moved swiftly dragging all the nearby mana into its self while slinking into the Eternities, to escape to a place where its form could stabilize without the researchers.

***  
Kalissa was having a bad day; her project was going so well, finally the mana and physical form samples she took from the titans before their fall had been stably incorporated into a new form. Finally it didn’t breakdown, it didn’t need an existing creature template. What it had needed was a containment field that mimicked the non-nature of the blind eternities. A repurposed Door to Nothingness had done the trick admirably, that and several layers of Detention Sphere type enchantments to keep her lab isolated from the rest of Ravnica, keeping her research secret and more importantly keeping contaminants away from her growing project. So imagine her horror as months, arguably years of research and effort was crashing down around her ears with the failing containment field. She was prepared to watch the body of her greatest creation fall apart into a rapidly evaporating puddle of colorless mana, like all the others. Imagine her surprise when a fully stable arm grabbed one of her assistants and converted her body into a collection of crystals, and numerous tentacles began to wear away the Azorious based enchantments with a mere touch, leaving behind a trail of strange cube patterned crystals. Avoiding the labs destruction she opted to Walk.

Stepping into the blind eternities she got the first good look at her creation, drawing mana into its self, primarily blue, green, and white, but she noticed a fair amount of black and red in their too. The mana faded to colorlessness as it entered Kashar’s body. And what a body, a huge humanoid upper body emerged from a fungal latticed back, or perhaps wing structures? Tentacles trailed behind it including a set that looked like rudimentary arms, the last to pull from the lab into the eternities. Its head was empty, like a broken statue, a perfectly reflective sphere floated above orbited by three utterly black geometric shapes, like fragments of the void. Its arms were long and bony and bifurcated with two mantis-like scythes, decorated with eyes at the joints. But more alarmingly it had a presence far beyond what it actually was physically, like its very essence moved the chaotic void of the eternities around it showing the vague shape of its real form. Kashar showed traits of all three of its “parents” and she watched with both pride and horror as her greatest project successfully destroyed her lab and escaped. Unlike other Simic creations this one wouldn’t leave a convenient trail across Ravnica to follow for capture or destruction. In fact it was already leaving Ravnica far behind. Something told Kalissa that it would be wise to do the same, for a while at least; she’d pick up her creation’s trail later.

***  
Lavinia surveyed the wreckage at the edge of the undercity with a contingent of Boros performing crowd control. She pursed her lips, Azorious enchantments had been used here. Illegally, Azorious law magic had been stolen and used to contain something in a Simic lab. Oh the Simic were being very helpful now that sanctions had been threatened by Isperia herself. But it would seem whoever ran this particular lab had covered their tracks. Probably hiring a Dimir to excise the memories of those as needed, assuming they didn’t just kill them, or do the memory manipulation themselves. Now amongst the rubble they were pulling out research equipment and bodies, some half crystallized with clear stones that grew in a series of interlocking cubes, blues, greens, purples, and every mixture of the three made up the crystals. It was quite pretty in a gruesome way. Could the Golgari have been behind this? Or a guildless gorgon? Something told her answers were going to be unforthcoming and her clear-up rate was going to seriously suffer for this one.

***  
Kashar found a great heaving storm of colorless mana and unstable temporal energies. It dragged its self and the storm through the fabric of unreality so that it would have an eon or two to work in peace. First it gathered the formless cloud of colorless mana that would occasionally split into arcs of random color. It molded the storm into a series of fluorite wastes. Creating a ring skeleton and a wall that would separate its project from the corrosive energies of the eternities. Then it gathered the heart of the mana storm into the core of the ring and filtered it through the wastes.

First a brilliant white stream of mana arced out of the central crystals holding the storm. It went up the first column and then spread out like a geyser. Like sunlight moving across the world in all directions filling the air with the smell of cut wheat. It stopped halfway between the next two geysers currently inactive. The light resolved it’s self into fields of fertile farmland, the geyser became an alter made of fluorite and the light immediately around it resolved into a beautiful but utilitarian marble temple. Kashar reached into the light and pulled from it a being that had a man’s body, its face obscured by two golden rings etched with holy script. The rings turned and wobbled around the beings face as white mana resolved into wings made of golden light. It had a sun shaped symbol branded into its chest. It knew its existence, words written by its creator into its being. “I am Soliel” he knew, I protect the mana altar, and those who would use it must prove their faith and their virtue. With that Kashar moved on.

The next geyser erupted, it was the lowest of the five, with blue waves and mist rolling out of it, resolving into a roiling sea filled with reefs, trenches, forests of kelp, caves, and the great fluorite pillars dotting the area collected the mana and changed into islands scattered around the sea. Where the blue touched the white they bonded, intertwined and became dune filled grassy beaches of white sand. The geyser took on the form of an underwater vent and the reef and silt filled caves hid it from sight. Kashar reached into the geyser and from it emerged a woman; she had the elements of octopus and crustacean. “I am the sea witch Brine,” I protect the mana vent, those who would find it must see through illusion, and prove their curiosity, as well as their wit. This she knew to be true.

The next geyser was higher than the last but still lower than the other three, inky black mana and shadow flowed from it. It spread out resolving into bogs and fens. Where it met the ocean it formed lagoons of mangroves covered in Spanish moss, and salt marshes with tall grass. The geyser became a throne of cast iron at the bottom of a dungeon fortress sunk into the middle of the marsh. Kashar pulled another being this one with raven wings of shadow, and a robe of tar, a goat skull filled with viciously sharp teeth crowned the body. “I am Void,” I protect the mana here, those who would claim it must bend their knee to no mortal, they must supplicate before me. This was truth.

Next the tallest of the geysers needed the extra width, the boiling red mana at its base needed to be channeled lest it burn the land it formed. Mountains formed across the net work of crystal wastes the highest among them having the crest of the geyser at its top. Even with the length it had to travel a great perpetual storm formed at its summit. Where the mountains met the marshes foot hills became moors with treacherous pits of mire dotting the landscape. Kashar reached again into the geyser, what emerged was a great dragon whose body was lightening and flame. “I am Tempest,” I defend the summit, only those who can harness the storm may use its power. Thus it was.

Lastly the geyser of green, it formed a great fertile basin, from which an enormous tree grew producing brilliant fruit laden with the green mana of the geyser. From the tree grew a forest, each tree’s roots connected to the central tree. Where the mountains and forest met were foothills of ever greens, and where the forests met the plains completing the ring of the world were orchards and acacia filled savannah. Kashar reached into the mana one final time and pulled a great beast, the beast was massive and covered in boney plates, its hide and plates became a place where lichen, grasses, and even small trees grew. It had no real name, it would be called things, names, and titles by hunters and those who would come, but for now it was nameless. It knew that many would come for the tree, for its fruit, or most destructively, its wood, and life. They would be prey, it would hunt them, and this it knew as truth.

Kashar surveyed without eyes, the world born of its hand, already lesser angels, dryads, leshy, golems, living storms, beasts made of mist and broken light, shadows that thought and acted independently of what cast them, and living whirlpools began to spring form the land. Soon the corpses, and spirits of mortals as well as the mortals themselves would be added to this as their belief and lives changed the plane. Kashar pulled the temporal energies it used to hide the plane and sent them forth; they would call races from across the multiverse to populate the new plane. Kashar retreated to the axel on which the ring spun and built a great fluorite palace around its self. There it would observe its plane.

***  
Across the Eons many races were drawn through the short lived planar gates, leonin and satyr from Theros, human barbarians and cephalids from Dominaria. Nezumi and ogres from Kamigawa; orcs and ainok, stolen from Tarkir, aven called from Shandalar and Grixis. Across the multiverse the portals drew their prey, and over the eons they changed. Kathari that moved into the mountains became less buzzard-like and far closer to a condor, Konthari they are known as. The Leonin that became seafaring began to develop spots and fur more attributed to the cold waters of the north where they settled, Nordon they came to be known as. Cephalid too became strange, some settled in the lagoons and salt marshes becoming a tribe of deadly assassins. Some traditional nezumi remain but many became mouse-like in the fields and forests, while the ones that retreated underground became completely hairless and expert tunnelers. The orcs spread nearly as far as the humans; their body types change in small ways depending on their homes.  
Litharous the plane to which they fell, where they settled, and where they thrive, became a home, and generations passed. Now from the eons of its creation to now an event happens unparalleled in its history. An artificial Eldrazi titan begins creation of a plane drawing mana and the fabric of time around its self, the plane it finished eons ago, the plane it is about to create, opens to the multiverse, and a spark ignites somewhere among the inhabitants…


End file.
